Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1918)

New Fashion-Plate By Sam G. Levy It's no longer the Stage, but the Screen, according to the man who murdered Sport Shirts and Funny Coats him to world-wide theatrical influence. Mr. Morosco had engaged a male star whom he believed to have great possibilities — possibilities, since fully demonstrated. But the man didn't know how to dress. Mr. Morosco came to me, and we ''doped out" not only a line of clothes for him, but attire for all of the Morosco men. That delightful association has continued, and I suppose that to it, directly or indirectly," I owe a business acquaintance with more than half the stage stars of today. I mention this merely to show my stepping-stone from stage interest to screen interest. Presently, some members of one of the first big picture producing companies in Los Angeles called on me and honored me with an extensive order. They specified, at a talkative length of about an hour and a half, the details they wanted in what they termed "society rags" for a "big society picture." I refused their order They were first astounded, then insulted. Then they asked me to explain. "Gentlemen," I said, "if your camera-man took a motion picture of me, I wouldn't tell him how fast to turn his crank. Yet you presume to tell me * what constitutes gentile attire. You are trying to costume a society picture ,. — and your result would look like a new set of skins for a menagerie." / So, my first motion picture conference only ended in a general peeve. Their things were made, elsewhere, as they wished — and no doubt the 4 -^ grocery-boy in Bogg's Corners, seeing the result, whispered to him self: "Real gents, by gosh!" But, presently, I did encounter a company which was willing to let me be its fabric architect and builder. And then it was my turn to be astonished — my work was not a success! I built these clothes along my most approved stage lines, as carefully as I knew how, and I say truthfully that my greatest disappointment and humiliation came when I saw the indifferent results on the screen. That moment I realized that I must become a student of two things — first, photography itself, in the fine changes of light and shadow; second, the photographic values of materials, colors, and color combinations. I have since extended that photographic study until it goes deeper than colors, clear down into the yarns from which the cloth is made, and the value of each to absorb or reflect light, to present perfect form — or lack of form. Without getting into dry science let me say this: the camera is a more / unerring analyst of woolens than the most practiced old merchant tailor / you ever saw. / I learned, too, that my studies would be practically endless. After I had acquainted myself with some rudiments of photography, I began to study 'scripts, and I have kept this up to the pres ent day. My I first request, Who is the Best-Dressed Actor on the Screen? LEVY says that he might name any one of six men — and refuses to specify any or all of the six because of possible injustice to others. However — Harold Lockwood measures up to the standard Levy himself has laid down. Lockwood — not counting innumerable character costumes and uniforms — keeps a wardrobe of twenty-seven up-to-the-minute suits of clothes, with boots, cravats, shirts, hats and a dozen or so overcoats, to match. This $3500 outlay enables Lockwood to depict a gentleman from anywhere, everywhere. 63